Six people were killed in a Palestinian Authority raid on a rival Hamas terrorist stronghold in the Samarian city of Kalkilya early Sunday.
The shootout erupted after the Fatah-led forces, trained by U.S. Armed Forces General Keith Dayton, attempted to arrest the Hamas gunmen in the PA-controlled city, which strongly supported Hamas in the PA elections four years ago.
When the dust had settled, more police than terrorists were dead: two Hamas operatives were killed in a hail of bullets, but so were three PA police officers and a civilian bystander. More than 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of explosives, including a suicide belt, were discovered at the scene.
Senior Hamas operative Muhammad Yassin was one of the two killed after the terrorists barricaded themselves in a house and refused to turn themselves in.
Yassin was reportedly killed when he attempted to detonate an explosives belt that he wore when the security forces entered the house, which they suspected was booby-trapped. The Hamas terrorists had allegedly planned to show support for Gaza residents by organizing a demonstration.
Hamas, which maintains a choke-hold over Gaza, claimed that 22 of its terrorists were taken into custody throughout the Fatah-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria over the weekend.
Elite Israeli forces killed a senior Hamas terrorist in the southern Hevron Hills late last week after a shootout that lasted several hours.
None of the IDF soldiers were hurt in the skirmish. Several local villagers were arrested after Abad al Majid Dudin, commander of the Hamas military wing for the local area, had been killed.
Egyptian mediators have spent months trying to bring the Hamas and Fatah factions together to recreate a PA unity government. Prior to the seizure of Gaza by Hamas in June 2007, Saudi Arabian King Abdullah had managed to convince the two terror groups to work together in a coalition, but it lasted only a few weeks.
PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas has in the past promised Israel and the United States not to return to any unity government with Hamas unless it first renounces terror, accepts Israel's right to exist and commits itself to upholding agreements signed by previous PA governments with Israel and other entities.